The Gift of Tradition

Kevin and I wanted to share with you a devotional that was written last year for our church’s advent devotional book. Each year the church compiles an Advent book that includes devotionals for each day in Advent. Bennie and Helen Ingram wrote this last year for the Galloway devotional book and Kevin and I thought it was a wonderful way to celebrate the season.

Bennie and Helen are some of the most giving people we know. Helen is the Director of Congregational Life and Care Ministry for Galloway and Bennie is one of our Sunday school teachers.  Both serve our church in more ways than we will ever even know. They both do an amazing job and are true examples of faith and love in action. We are so blessed to call them our friends. Bennie shared this story with us in Sunday school and then Helen wrote the devotional. We plan to make this part of our Christmas tradition for Drew. What a wonderful gift to give your child-the gift of anticipating the true meaning of Christmas.

I am re-printing this devotional, with their permission, exactly as it was written for the 2008 Galloway United Methodist Church Advent Devotional-Anticipate the Gift.
THREE GIFTS

Helen Ingram

I grew up in a small town in East Tennessee. My father owned a Western Auto store. Every Christmas Eve, sometimes with snow on the ground, my dad would deliver bikes and wagons to parents who had no place to store these items for their children. Many would be waiting after dark anxiously anticipating his arrival. I guess this was the beginning of seeing how my dad did things for others. I treasure that memory. He would come home late and tired on Christmas Eve but happy because he had helped so many parents bring an anticipated joy to their children.

Since there was a toy section in his store, most of our Christmas gifts came from items left in the store after they closed the doors on Christmas Eve. I can remember one Christmas I asked for the bride doll in the window of the hardware store across the street. I watched every day anticipating what I would do if I had that doll. One day it disappeared from the window of that store. It was a sad day for me, but to my delight because my mother listened to the longings of a little girl, that doll was under our tree on Christmas Day.

My favorite Christmas gift, one of the few I remember, was a teddy bear that had only one eye. I am sure that is why it was not sold. He had a tail that would squeak. I would pretend the bear would ‘squeak’ “Now I lay me down to sleep…” with me as I said my prayers each night. I can remember sadly packing the bear away before I left for college.

So fast-forward 25 years later and we are parents. Bennie and I only spent one Christmas at home while our children were young. Our parents lived far away so we always travelled to be with family. Gifts for our two children had to fit in the golf bag cover that was placed in the trunk of the car. [Bennie told Kevin and I in his re-telling of this story that he was always amazed the kids never noticed he never played golf on their trips, but yet always packed his golf clubs.] One Christmas, I read a parenting article written by James Dobson. He suggested a way to help a family on a budget control holiday spending. What parent doesn’t want to ‘give’ their children all they want at Christmas! This article said to allow your child to choose three gifts from ‘Santa’ just like Jesus received three gifts from the Wise Men. And so that became the rule at our house…THREE GIFTS. I can remember one Christmas when our daughter chose a roll of Scotch tape as one of her three gifts. We laughed, but that is what she found from Santa that Christmas. She is now an art therapist and tape is probably one of the tools of her trade as she counsels some of the children she sees in therapy. In using Dobson’s idea, I can only hope that we taught our children at an early age to anticipate the gift of Christ coming into the world at Christmas rather than all the ‘things’ that Santa might have brought them.

What a wonderful gift Christ is to all of us at Christmas. How can we help someone else anticipate the gift of His love this Christmas?

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